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Sunday Reflection

As some of you know my Grandma Davis, whom I last wrote about, has passed on to heaven to be with grandpa. It has been a long time coming, that I know. It happened quickly and that is fine but it made me start reflecting on myself and families lives. What is so stinking important. We always talk about “oh, i’d love to do that someday”, my kids say “Oh I really want to go to Disney” We reply, maybe when you are older and enjoy it more. What are we doing now though to make those memories. Our weeks seem to run fluently through each other and the days are a blur. I don’t even know when my kids got so tall or how long my son’s been wearing high-waters, however, he explained he doesn’t like when the fabric is on his ankles. That’s a whole other topic for another day. Some days I feel like, Good lord, did my kids eat enough vegetables today although most days it’s, well they ate and are full good enough. We are just all so busy. I’m starting to plan summer activities and it is crazy how much there is to do and enjoy and how it seems like so little time to do it all.

While I went through my Grandmas photo albums trying to find photo’s of her life and love to share at her funeral, it really made me think back to how her life was and where she has been, been through, observed and probably prayed out. I saw pictures from the 1940’s, a time we don’t even think back on how the world was anymore. It was such a long time ago, to even imagine someone I have spent time with being alive and enjoying that time is still crazy to me. Seeing pictures of cars that are now “classic” or “collectors” as just every day cars on the side of the road. You see all these happy gatherings of families around Christmas trees and swing sets in what I would assume is summer. Pictures of their prized possessions, cars and children, toys and a small box that you would probably never guess what was inside. You don’t see selfies in front of mirrors or when you are not put together. That was a time that you took the time to look presentable. You took the time to feel good about what you were showing the world of your world. You wore your Sunday best, went to church and relaxed. This thought brought me to one of my favorite shows 7th Heaven. Its cheesy and not realistic but it tries to show in a short period of episode values that are still wanted today. Struggles of families face with teenagers every day no matter what the generation.

In one episode, later in the show, Lucy has worked to become a minister and while her actual intentions in the episode is not really all because of this, she is realizing that everyone in her family too are getting too busy to appreciate the time they have in their lives. Here is a snip it of her sermon that she gives that episode. “Genesis 2 second and third verse. “And he rested on the seventh day from all of his work he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it”. It wasn’t that long ago that Sunday was the day we all rested. We treated Sunday as a special day. When we came to Sunday school and church. And we rested when we went home. We talked. We read. We spent time to ourselves meditating or praying or just reflecting on our lives, our purpose, our behavior. Or even just the events of the week that just passed. It wasn’t that long ago that businesses weren’t open on Sunday. If you got in your car, it was to visit your friends and family. Just to let them know that you care, or maybe check out their situation, or just help out. At the end of the day on what used to be Sunday, people were rested and looked forward to the following week. Sometimes with determination to be kinder, to do better, to work harder. What happened to Sunday? Our parents grew up with Sundays off. That means they had fifty-two days a year to rest. And those were the years when there was a summer, a real summer. Three months off from school for children to play. A break from the nine months long school year when the routine was different. The energy was different. The air was sweeter. The nights longer. And children stayed up late because they could sleep in the next morning. It was when children wore themselves out with the fun of summer and longed for school again. We don’t really have those summers anymore. We don’t have those Sundays anymore either. Children and parents and families and adults have fifty-two more days a year to do stuff. Sunday is the day we catch up on our work and our homework because there’s so much work and so much homework there’s no time to do it. We work seven days a week, or at least are on the go seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. And yet we wonder why children grow up so fast. Why people need drugs to relax? Why they need human contact even if it’s the form of inappropriate unfulfilling sex? Could it be because we’ve lost fifty-two opportunities a year to rest and reflect and or visit our friends and loved ones? That’s five hundred and twenty days in ten years. That’s one thousand and forty days in twenty years. I’ve lost a thousand and forty plus days in my life because Sunday is no longer Sunday. And I’m stressed and tired and irritable and I feel as if I have no time to do the things I need to do. I never have the time to do the things I want to do. And I’m just turning twenty-one. How am I going to feel when I’m my dad’s age? How are all of us going to feel when I’m my dad’s age? Yet I fear we’ve lost our Sundays forever unless we make an effort to reclaim them. And in losing our Sundays we’re losing a lot more. We’re losing ourselves.”

This is so true. So many times at my Grandmas funeral, I heard people say “I wish I would have gotten to go visit her or I had been meaning to stop and see her life has just been crazy”. Life is crazy, but it is only as crazy as we let it be. My new change to this year and outlook ahead for me and my family is to love more, worry less and be the change we want to see in the world. We are looking to cut our cable if you will. Play more with the kids, explore outside, learn all we can and visit the people we love not just with Facebook. We don’t know how many Tuesdays, Friday or Sundays for that matter we have left with anyone. Make it a point, see if you can, to schedule in time to be with the ones you love. I was blesses to see my Grandma more than some. The morning she passed, I had to get her something that she had been pestering me for, for over a week. I’ll always be glad I did. I only had a few minutes, but those are the last few moments she would see me and remember and I with her as well. I breezed in, dropped of the recipe she asked for, she asked me why I was there. I joked, to break you out, we are playing hookie. She said she needed breakfast first, come back in an hour. I gave her a kiss told her I loved her and she said “be good, love you too.”

How many of these moments are we missing in our lives because we are running like crazy people. I think it is totally fitting that as I type this Cher’s “If I could turn back time” comes on the radio! Take your Sundays back, take your life back, don’t miss your chance to hear “be good, love you too”

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katennate

I have been given a 2nd chance with the most amazing man in the world. We have started a family and have a wonderful yet scary adventure of parenting to Kameron and MaKenzie. What will the future bring?
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